


Dry Leaves in the Wind

by signalbeam



Series: Flowers Fall With the Rain [2]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Community: badbadbathhouse, Confessions, Denial, Drunkenness, F/F, Not edward cullen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-07
Updated: 2009-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-18 13:11:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signalbeam/pseuds/signalbeam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Yukiko and Nanako's relationship progresses, the secrecy and uncertainty begin to set Yukiko off-balance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dry Leaves in the Wind

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to [Flowers Fall With the Raini]().
> 
> Flowers Fall and Dry Leaves were both so weird to write, especially given Persona 4's themes of, "accept your true self!" and "no, really, accept it!" The theme for both stories can be summed up as, "Who needs denial?" "I do. :("
> 
> I'm continually baffled by this mini-series' popularity. Thank you if you have read both pieces for tolerating my strange typos, subject-verb disagreements, and moments of truly bizarre language-use.

Yukiko didn’t feel comfortable with anything anymore.

It wasn’t a pleasant sensation. Hardly anything about the current situation was pleasant. It was nearly impossible to hide things in Inaba, especially relationships. Everything came out eventually. Old skeletons always came to light. And, often enough, hiding something long enough came around and blew up in her face. Why bother even hiding it? Because showing it would mark her as strange and, most of all, foolish and predatory and dangerous. Inaba was perfectly willing to gloss over her sexuality, just as long as they didn’t see it as a threat. Taking a girl half a year out of high school was definitely a threat.

Yukiko briefly considered drowning herself in wine. She decided against it. All that wine would leave such a mess when they hauled her body out. The tatami mats would stain.

 

\---

 

“So,” Nanako said, head supported by her hand, elbow on the pillow, and the rest of her sinking into Yukiko’s futon. “Where did you get all of these, anyway?”

There was a brief, considered moment where Yukiko looked ready to dodge the question with a blank stare and the slightest of smiles. Before it could happen, Nanako extended her finger, and then, carefully, ran it along Yukiko’s ribs. Yukiko held her breath, eyes flickering over to Nanako’s fingers; up Nanako’s arm, then back down to Nanako’s hand as more fingers joined the lone one on Yukiko’s hip, and dipped down. Then Nanako smiled, and flicked, lightly, at what looked like scratches from the meanest and biggest cat in the history of the world.

“I mean, I can get the one on your palm as being a cooking scar”-the way Yukiko had explained it the first time, it had sounded like a euphemism for, ‘I was at war with my kitchen, please don’t mind that the kitchen won’-“but I don’t think your kitchen could have done this.”

“Maybe it was a can opener,” Yukiko said, laughing when Nanako pouted over the evasion. “Did Souji-kun ever tell you about the television?”

Come to think of it, Souji had mentioned it once or twice, but Souji could be a little… odd sometimes. Although odd didn’t always explain the full depths of his personality. He once ate her science project. It had been _grass_. She couldn't understand what would have possessed anyone to take the first bite, never mind the second. Or the third.

“Kind of…?” she said.

“Oh.” And that avenue of conversation shut down almost instantly. By now, Nanako felt as though she was pretty skilled at figuring out what things Yukiko was willing to talk about, and things that splled an instant death to conversation. Conversations with Yukiko were like getting dressed in the dark. There was no telling how things might turn out.

“Yukiko-san,” Nanako whined. “I’m really curious. You and big brother used to date, right? So you two wouldn’t have happened to do anything-”

“No.”

“But the last time we were in the hot springs, Chie-san and Naoto-san…” Weirdly similar scars that she could never really comment on without feeling a little guilty. Chie's feet and shins looked as though she had walked miles through jagged rocks in shorts, and without any shoes.

“No,” Yukiko said, this time more firmly. She removed Nanako’s hand from her hip, and tugged the blanket back up to her chest. Then, “He really told you nothing?”

“I don’t really remember. I remember something about Namatame-san, and being kidnapped by him, but I don't really..." She gestured, at the ceiling. "It's all a blur."

“Oh,” said Yukiko. She reached over for her alarm clock, and said, “You should go home.”

“Dad won’t be too mad if I stay overnight here.” Yukiko brushed some hair out of Nanako’s face, and gave Nanako a look. Nanako blushed. Her dad wouldn't be happy if he knew that she was sleeping with a woman who was going to be thirty soon enough, but it was Yukiko. That had to take some of the bite out of it. Except if she told her father, then Yukiko might run, and that’d be the end of that. Nanako rolled in a little closer to Yukiko, and carefully, kissed the side of her mouth. When their lips made contact, Nanako knew that she could push on. Yukiko removed the blanket between them, and Nanako, hungry for contact, pressed forward. The alarm clock, maybe not so accidentally, got shoved to the side. Then, suddenly, Yukiko pushed Nanako away.

“Hnngh?”

“Someone’s coming,” Yukiko said. She reached for the dress she had been wearing earlier, and, with far more grace than the average desperate ‘oh no, I need to put something on before someone sees me naked’ dash for clothes, dressed herself, smoothed her hair so it didn’t look like a complete mess, and said, “I’ll be back in a second.”

Now that Nanako was listening, she could hear someone coming down the halls with measured, proper, almost prim, footfalls. Nanako rolled over in Yukiko’s futon, and let out a long groan.

 

\---

 

The midnight visitor turned out to be Naoto, fresh off of patrol. She smelled faintly of sweat and the interior of someone’s car and a bit like grass and dew, and looked as though she had an unfortunate encounter with someone’s brick wall. When Yukiko expressed concern, Naoto brushed it off with a, “I’ve been through worse,” and handed Yukiko a bag of textiles.

“Kanji wanted me to drop these off,” she said.

“Oh,” Yukiko said. Naoto peered at the closed door of Yukiko’s room. Yukiko smoothed the hem of her dress, and said, “What is it?”

“I thought,” Naoto said, “that I heard someone in there.”

“You didn’t,” Yukiko said. “I’m sorry for making you come all the way here.”

“The police seems to believe traffic duty is an appropriate use of my skills,” Naoto said, disgruntled. “This has been the high point of my day.”

Yukiko laughed, a little nervously. Then she said, “You should go home now, Naoto-kun. I’ll pay Kanji-kun later.”

“Yes,” Naoto said. Then she said, “Should I tell Chie-san about the person—”

“ _No._ ” Because if Chie knew, then it would be over, everything. The carefully constructed game of summer secrecy and evasion, the illusion that this was something that would end at the end of the summer, maybe even Yukiko herself. More than that, Nanako would be gone. There would be the long nights alone in her futon, waiting for the hours to cross the clock, waiting and waiting and waiting for nothing.

“I’m sure that Chie-san will be very happy for you, regardless of who is there,” Naoto said. And then, a little belatedly, she added, “I am, too. As is the rest of our… team.” Her brow furrowed. “It isn’t Yosuke-senpai, is it?”

“Everyone keeps asking me that question.” But what really bothered Yukiko was that both Naoto and Kanji had been perfectly serious when they asked her.

“Yosuke-senpai has a new girlfriend,” said Naoto. “Evidence suggests that she exists, but no one has been able to verify her identity.” Naoto smiled slightly and said, “It is the same for you, I see.”

“Naoto-kun,” Yukiko said, meaning for it to come out as a warning instead of a lukewarm statement devoid of sentiment.

Naoto twisted the wedding band around her finger. “It is nice,” she said, “to see people so happy.”

 

\---

 

Naoto hadn’t expected Yukiko to show up at the police station parking lot looking for Naoto specifically. She was dressed in not a kimono, but a dress, and looked by all means as though the slightest hint of agitation might cause her to spontaneously combust.

“Naoto-kun,” Yukiko said, her fingers twisting around each other. “Would you mind accompanying me for dinner?”

“It’s not as though I dislike spending time with you,” Naoto said carefully. “But most dinner invitations come earlier in the day.”

Yukiko, who was by all means a very courteous person, said, “I sent you three e-mails, and called you four times. All of my calls went straight to voicemail.”

Naoto checked her personal phone, and saw that it was still off. Come to think of it, she hadn’t even taken it out of her pocket in the last three days.

“I… I see,” Naoto said. “Is it for business or pleasure?”

“It’s… personal.”

Which made things even odder, because Naoto couldn’t understand why Yukiko would have come to Naoto, of all people. As far as emotional confidence went, the team relied on Souji, and, if not on Souji, then someone else who was most often not Naoto. She knew that for all of Yukiko’s supposed intimacy with Chie, the two had a way of avoiding major issues until the last possible second. Chie told Naoto that she was engaged by prefacing it with, “I’m hiding something from Yukiko, and don’t know how to tell her, help me find a way to tell her, oh my god.” Yukiko told the Chie about her spectacularly self-destructive exploits with her boyfriend’s sister after coming out to the rest of the Inn and, apparently, Inaba, first.

"All right, then," Naoto said. "Let me call Kanji."

"I've already told him where you'd be."

Naoto tried to not show her surprise. Or her irritation.

"Please," Yukiko said. "I need to talk with someone about this."

 

—-

 

Yukiko took Naoto to a neighboring town for dinner. She kept looking over her shoulder the entire time, as though expecting someone to be tailing her. Naoto, after a while, began checking behind her shoulder as well. Irrationality was, unfortunately, infectious. No matter how many times she told herself that she had no reason to do this, head would turn, a little, to the left.

Once they had a seat in a private corner of the restaurant, Yukiko performed a final shoulder check, and then relaxed. She opened up the menu and for all intents and purposes was reading it. She wasn't. Naoto could tell because her eyes were focused on a point just behind the menu. Naoto had a nagging feeling that Souji ought to be doing this, or maybe Rise, but she couldn't leave now. To do so would amount to a betrayal.

"Is everything all right, senpai?" Naoto said.

"Nothing is," muttered Yukiko, her eyes focusing, suddenly, on the menu once more.

Naoto waited for an explanation. Then she said, "Why not?"

"I'm sleeping with Nanako Dojima." The waiter was here now, and she ordered something. Then the waiter was taking the menu from Naoto's hands, and walked away. Naoto tried to stop him, but Yukiko said, "I've already ordered something for you."

"Since when?" Naoto said.

"Just now, I should think."

"Senpai, I meant since when have you and Nanako-chan..." She couldn't finish the sentence. "You are... not jesting?" she said. It was a foregone conclusion. Yukiko couldn't keep a straight face if she tried.

"I don't know what to do, Naoto-kun," she said. "I don't know why I did it."

"Really," Naoto said. "Um. Perhaps... Perhaps Rise-san or Souji-san would be..."

"Nanako-san is Souji-kun's sister. And if Rise-chan hadn't pointed her out to me..." Yukiko trailed off, her anger evaporating off of her skin and vanishing straight away. "If she hadn't pointed Nanako-san out to me, this wouldn't have started. Any of this. I didn't mean to start, but now I can't stop. Everything's... everything's gone wrong." She looked, for a moment, at a wall, and Naoto had the impression of all the walls of the restaurant bending towards them, inching and inching. Naoto shivered. How frightening, she thought, to be so caught by a cage.

“I’m not the optimal choice for dispensing advice,” Naoto said when the silence began to lift the hairs on the back of her neck, one by one.

"I wanted someone who could be... rational about this,” Yukiko said.

Rational or not, she was at complete loss for words. Nothing she could think to say made any sense. Not without more data. "Is the relationship going well?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I don't know anything anymore. I can't... I don't understand Nanako-san. I barely understand myself anymore." Yukiko made a face. "I must sound like a terrible person."

"Nanako-san _is_ of age, Yukiko-san."

"She is, isn't she?" Yukiko smiled sadly, and said, "I thought you might say that. Objectively there is nothing wrong, is there?"

"How does she make you feel?"

"I don't know... Everything's gotten so confusing."

"And how does she feel?"

"Who knows? Anything, really."

Never a good sign, Naoto thought. "If that is the case, then proceeding with this relationship makes little sense. I would say that it is even counterproductive."

"You wouldn't be wrong, no," Yukiko said, and thanked the waiter as he served their dishes.

"You've already come to the same conclusion by yourself," Naoto said. "Why did you need me to tell you this at all?"

Yukiko picked up her fork. She didn't do anything with it for a moment. Then she said, "Every course of action I think of seems to be wrong. Anything and everything I'm doing could be wrong." She speared a tomato with the fork. "Have you... have you ever wanted something you shouldn't have? Or someone, I suppose."

It was the kind of question with only one answer. “Of course.”

"But did you ever take it?" Yukiko said. Before Naoto could answer, she said, "And afterwards, did you feel guilty, or did you sit there and hope someone would catch you so you could feel guilty over something? Or were you a respectable person who turned her down immediately, and didn't give her your phone number or a ride back to Inaba to begin with?"

Naoto opened her mouth. The first thing that came out was, "I've never invited any girls in my room."

"I'm not sure if the sex really matters, Naoto-kun." Yukiko clicked her tongue once, twice. And then said, "Let's... let's talk about something else now. I trust that you won't tell anyone?"

"If you wish for it to remain private, then I will not tell anyone," Naoto said. "Although I recommend that you should tell Souji-san. He will not do anything to you."

"I can't look at him in the eye anymore," Yukiko said.

"Does he know?"

"You know. I know. Nanako-san knows." Naoto glowered at Yukiko. She bowed her head, and said, "I'm sorry for putting you in a bad position, Naoto-kun. I'll pay for your dinner."

"That's not necessary," Naoto said. "I can pay for myself. I apologize for not being of any help."

"You were very helpful," Yukiko said. "Although... I suppose the only way to truly know yourself would be to ask your Shadow again, wouldn't it?" There was an uncomfortable silence, in which Naoto was sure that Yukiko hadn’t meant to say that aloud, and Yukiko was surely thinking of a way to rephrase what she had said. Yukiko laughed and said, "It's a silly idea, isn't it?"

"Yes," Naoto said. “Disconcertingly so.”

"Yes," Yukiko said, in a dream-like, whispering way. "Yes, it is."

 

—-

 

Nanako made it to the Inn before Yukiko did. She waited at the edge of the Inn, her legs dangling off of the edge of the veranda. Members of the staff kept asking Nanako if she wanted something to drink or eat, but she refused them each time. Maybe, she thought, they knew and approved of her. She didn’t want to be disliked, not by Yukiko’s family. And she knew that this was a weird relationship, so any sign of approval made her giddy.

At half-past ten, a familiar black car drove up to the Inn. Naoto got out of the car first, smiled tersely at Nanako, and opened the door for Yukiko. Yukiko got out of Naoto's car, giggling like there was a joke no one else knew about. Nanako jogged up to the car, unsure of how to approach anything. It’d definitely be inappropriate to take her not-girlfriend and do anything too showy, but she didn’t know what qualified as showy or not. Would things like “helping her up” count as showy?

“Nanako-chan,” Naoto said.

“Hi,” Nanako said. “I’m, um. What happened to..."

"Alcohol," Naoto said. "I suggest putting her to bed straight away."

"I can handle it just _fiiiiine._ Geeze, Naoto-kun!"

"Right," Nanako said. Fine. Right. People from Inaba, more often than not, made for friendly drunks. A little too friendly, maybe. She didn't like it. It wasn't as though her father had been a complete drunkard, but it wasn't really a harbringer of good memories, either. And, really, she hadn't expected to be taking care of Yukiko like this. Yukiko had always seemed so... responsible. Reliable, maybe, in her own way. "Thanks, Naoto-san."

Yukiko was certainly capable of standing on her own. Walked straight, too, even if she was giggly beyond all sense of belief. Nanako bit her lip. Naoto got into the car and said, “Good luck managing her, Nanako-chan. If you ever feel in trouble, then please call me.” Then she drove away, clearly concerned about something that Nanako didn’t really understand.

“Nanako-saaan. Let's... let's go to my room. Hahaha..."

"Is something funny?" Nanako said.

"Nothing," Yukiko said. Yukiko touched her lips with her hand. Her eyes went wide. "Pf—pffha... haha. You... you can't drink, can you, Nanako-chan?"

"I don't really want to."

"You're... hahaha, just a kid, aren't you? Haha..." The laughter stopped suddenly, as Yukiko turned to look at Nanako, neither completely like herself, or unlike it. "I told Naoto-kun."

“That’s...” No wonder Naoto had been so jittery. “Okay,” Nanako finished, and opened the door to Yukiko’s room for her.

"You don't mind?"

"I think it's a good first step if you want to make this more than a thing."

"I think it's a terrible thing." Yukiko was undressing, almost as though she had forgotten Nanako was in the room. "Because it means that someone knows. It means that there's no more hiding. Even if you bring something to light once, then it stays there forever." Yukiko slipped into a nightgown, and sat at the desk. "I wanted to go into the TV," she said. "I wanted to go in there and see if there were any answers. But there wouldn't be. Everything in there is peaceful. Nothing's there anymore, nothing but Teddie and the world he..."

"Are you really drunk, or are you just pulling my leg?" Nanako said. She ought to leave. Yukiko wasn’t thinking straight, and anything they did now would be a mistake. A product of alcohol-fueled desire that would end in apologies in the morning. Yukiko was stupid for drinking this much. Nanako, for the first time, wanted to get out of this room and not come back until morning.

"I don't know. Both, maybe." But she wasn't laughing anymore. That had to count for something. Nanako went to Yukiko's side, and looked into her eyes. Not really lucid, but not really drunk, either. She didn't know what it meant, only that she wanted to leave and go back home and stay there until she was sure that Yukiko was sober. "I can't tell anything apart anymore," she muttered, and kissed Nanako lightly.

She didn’t know if she could smell alcohol on Yukiko’s breath. Nanako drew away from the kiss, and said, "Why don't you go to bed?"

"Only if it's with you."

The bluntness took Nanako by surprise. She studied Yukiko's face again, searching for a tell-tale flush, slurred words.

Yukiko sighed in exasperation. "I haven't had that much to drink, Nanako-san," Yukiko said. "I... I just needed enough to make sure that Naoto wouldn't let me drive home by myself. If I did, I would have gone to Yosuke-kun's house and borrowed his TV for a little while."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't have to," Yukiko said, and kissed Nanako again. Trace amounts of something sweet on her lips. "Nanako-san," Yukiko said, this time more earnestly. Nanako hesitated, for the briefest of seconds. Then she decided, well, what the hell. Maybe Yukiko wasn't that drunk. Or maybe she was. Did it really matter? Maybe... maybe it did, but she didn't care about it enough to stop.

Yukiko undressed Nanako carefully, hands steady and eyes calm. It was the first time that Yukiko didn't look like she was struggling through a million "no's" in her head to get to this point, and while Nanako normally found breaking through the protests to be kind of fun, she liked the way Yukiko approached her now: daring and unafraid and pleased with herself. Like she really wanted Nanako, instead of doubling back on herself all the time. Yukiko's hands were cool to the touch, were on her shoulders and breasts and then stroking Nanako's face.

"You'll leave after the summer is over," Yukiko said. "This time, please don't come back."

It was just the alcohol talking, Nanako thought, shivering a little under Yukiko's hands. Yukiko helped Nanako sit on the top of her desk, and parted Nanako's legs, her hands on Nanako's knees.

"You’ll leave in the summer, and you’ll be back in the winter." Her hands were warm on Nanako's thighs. The words in Nanako's head were fragmenting and breaking apart. Yukiko's hands were on her hips, thumbs pressing just beneath the hipbones. Nanako had things to say, she really did, but at this rate, she'd never get a chance to say them. “If you came back, I’ll be happy to see you.”

“I—”

A hand fell between Nanako’s legs, and silenced her. The room smelled like the Inn: summer grass and nearby water and, in the distance, fog rising off the river. "The question is if you’ll come back _here_.”

“If I said that I’d be back, would you believe me?”

They shared a smile in the dark.

“No,” Yukiko said. “Never.”


End file.
